Once you're accepted into the game as an active player (huzzah!) you'll want to get started as soon as possible. Here's how you go about it. No, we won't kick you out if you don't adhere to these procedures, but they're meant to increase readability of the turns, which hope is a goal of yours, too. Write in third person, past tense "Amina smiled" is correct; "I smiled" or "Amina smiles" is not. This helps everyone read your post without getting confused about who you're talking about. (Hmm...if you've read about her, perhaps a better example would be, "Amina didn't smile.") Mark anything out of character with "OOC" Just to separate material that's happening in the game and stuff that's about the game. Putting brackets about the OOC comment as well would be nice. If the entire message is out of character (that is, having to deal with real life), then precede your subject with "OOC." Keep the message subject If the turn goes out as "3. Farikh: Unblooded footsteps", then please don't send in your replying move as "Stalking the intruder" or something equally random. The "re:" that some email programs insert is fine. But we would like to know which message you're responding to. Additionally, the preceding "[Shazrad]" will be handled automatically, so you never have to bother with typing it in. And those who use filters will find this useful. Place thoughts within tildes An example is: ~Gosh,~ he thought, ~there are a lot of format rules.~ Note that only direct thoughts are formatted thus; descriptions of thoughts, such as: "She wondered about what he was doing there," do not need any indicating marks. Anything else that would be italicized (except for emphasis) can go inside these as well. Asterisks are for emphasis Please do *not* use bold, italics, or color with a HTML-capable email client, as not all players (or even the gamemasters) may be able to read them in plain text. Quote only as much as needed Don't include the entire post you're responding to unless you're referring to every part of it. Feel free to cut out paragraphs (and stick in "[snip]" when you do so) and only leave those that you're directly replying to. On the other hand, do quote at least the last paragraph of the previous post so we know what happened before, even if understanding your actions aren't dependent upon that post. This is so we can be certain of the order in which things happen. If you got the move but have no response, let us know regardless Sometimes you get a move and think, There isn't anything I can add to this! What were the GMs thinking? As much as it grieves us, this does happen once in a while. Nevertheless, send a message letting us know that you have seen the move, but don't intend a reply. This lets us know that we can move on and try again with the next set of moves. Send all moves to shazrad@yahoogroups.com Everyone will see whatever you send to the list, so if this is a problem (although I don't anticipate a lot of secret moves, especially as all the players should know how to firewall), send the message to shazrad@cityofveils.com instead. Copyright © 2000-2001 by Alioqui & Yoon Ha Lee <shazrad@cityofveils.com> [ Return to the top of the page ]